The present invention relates to high speed cooling of slab ingots, round ingots or the like, which have been made, e.g. by continuous casting and are being moved on a roller track.
The casting (ingot) as emerging from a mold for continuous casting, must be cooled rather rapidly for a variety of reasons, to reduce the temperature thereof prior to further working. Spraying on water is a commonly practized method. Particularly, water is sprayed on from above or transversely to the direction of casting; see e.g. German printed patent applications No. 2,208,928 and No. 2,053,947. Cooling is not only needed immediately following the emergence of the only partially solidified ingot from the mold, but also after the ingot was cut into sections. The same is true with regard to ingots cast otherwise. It is also known to apply a coolant to a round ingot in a helical, overlapping flow pattern.
The known methods of cooling an ingot suffer certain drawbacks because of the specific operating condition any instant, certain portions, though narrow ones, are, so to speak, shielded from the coolant by the support rolls. This local difference in cooling was found to set up defects, possibly resulting even in transverse fractures in the interior of the ingot. On the face of it, the shielding effect of the withdrawal rolls seems to be inevitable.